Seattle Sports Insider

Seattle 5, Kansas City 6

Posted by

4/15/11

Q. Bad luck again? or bad pitching from Erik?

A. Amigos want to see victories, not excuses, and I don't blame 'em. :- ) But we are still gonna call 'em as we see 'em.

Over a year's period of time we've learned to ignore W-L-ERA and look at K's, BB's, and HR's. Too bad we can't do the same over three starts' time...

Q. How was the strike zone on Friday?

A. The plot is above. Here is the direct link to Brooks.

There were 10 Bedard pitches directly within the strike zone that were called balls, another three to five one inch off the zone which are normally called strikes (see Hardball Times) and guess how many pitches missed the zone, that were called strikes in error?

None. Zero.

Here, let's chart that out:

10 pitches inside zone, called balls
13-15 pitches (in 4+ innings) that are normally strikes, called balls
0 pitches given back as strike calls

Isn't it great that we don't have to argue about opinions on the umps any more? We've got 21st century tech. The ump destroyed Erik, especially in the first when the walks set up the whole game.

That's twice in a row. I'd like to know what's going on.

Q. How was his stuff?

A. He fanned 6 hitters in 4+ innings, and that's after taking away 10-15 strikes from him.

So the BABIP against him was what -- 7/14? 50% of the batted balls fell in. That's despite most of the balls being on the ground.

Imagine you're a pitcher. You prep five days for your start. You go out in rain, the ump takes away a bunch of your strikes, the ball goes through holes, and you can't tell the press a blinkin' thing about it.

.......

His velocity was UP a little, and he had great hop on his fastball ... more than 11" rise compared to vacuum.

His curve wouldn't break hard, though, dropping only 8 inches compared to vacuum when 11-12 inches is his norm. In case you just joined us, it's hard to make a curve ball crackle when you throw it through falling water.

Q. So SSI is still bullish?

A. I'm going to trade for him in all my fantasy leagues, right now .... oh, wait. I own him in all my fantasy leagues.

Give Eric Wedge mega-props. He has Erik's back. He's pounding into the media the fact that Erik's stuff is terrific and that it's just a matter of a little patience.

Bet you Erik appreciates that huge.

Q. How was the ump on Hochevar?

A. Not much better. I count like 8 blown calls against Hochevar and 0 given back.

..........

So here is Luke WhoEverChar, getting squeezed by the ump and still flinging a 1-hit shutout with the greatest of ease. This after Bruce Chen, a comPLETE meatball, pole-axed us like fatted calves.

As you know, SSI is not one to jump at shadows. But it is time to hit the alarm button on the offense.

They had some buzz after Felix' and Pineda's W's, and were all set to win Vargas' game, when Ray imploded.... but hey. You fail to add on a 2-1 lead and you're gonna lose a LOT of games.

After the Ray gutpunch, the M's came out against two ordinary SP's and just looked terrible at the plate. Not a single hitter (with Smoak resting) looked capable of punishing a mistake.

Objectively speaking, it's got to be BABIP in there somewhere. Hochevar had only 4 strikeouts, and yet the M's had only one hit? And the Hustle Board shows that they were working hard. It's weird: you'd say for sure that this is an offense that (1) can't buy a break and (2) isn't good enough to deserve a break.

:shrug:

But still. This offense needs two bats and it is looking like it right now. THIS morning, if I'm Jack Zduriencik, I'm alarmed. He can't afford to lose 95 games and smile, "So what." They are running a business down there.

Cheerio,

Dr D

Comments

I'm with you on Bedard until

I'm with you on Bedard until I'm not... He's fiddling a bit out there and IMO not trusting his stuff. I've never seen him pitch to the black, it seems like the early HR's given up in Texas have made him question himself.
The offense stinks, career norm wishing or not, it still stinks and it should have (for business reasons, not "process" ones) been addressed more compitently this off-season. Frankly, I'm starting not to care much anymore...
I would trade Pineda yesterday if it meant some legit sock. I would think about felix as well, they are driving the fanbase into the dirt with the sissy-ish MOTO bats and that's enough of that.

Hit the spinner

Eric Wedge comments by Shannon Drayer:
"He threw well but I know what you are talking about. What you can't do is get passive up there. We want guys to be aggressive with their mindset have the discipline to get into hitters counts but ultimately a couple of things are happening. When we get pitches to hit we can't miss them. I think that one of the things that is happening is either we are a tad past at times in taking pitches we should take hacks at and when we do take hacks at them we are not squaring them up and rifling the ball all over the place like we need to be doing."

Trade deadline 2001

Was when this front office started driving me to distraction with its comfort-zone, 'nice night at the ballpark' mentality CA... we'd like to order a dozen more mini-rants just like that one, if your cooks have the freezer stocked to fill the order...
We've been arguing for ten years that this mentality robs the game of its soul, and as the attendance spirals down guess who gets the blame, the fans or the front office...
Little doubt here that when the org gets in real trouble, after YEARS of DREARY airport ball, we'll hear that Seattle just isn't that much of a baseball town...

Erikkk

Interesting suggestion on Bedard, and am not at all closed to it .... There is a certain nibbly-ness to his look the first three games, no doubts there, as though he's feeling his way in the dark. He's circling the hitters warily, rather than diving in for the takedown.
1. Would like to know what the hitters' counts woulda looked like with the 10-12 strikes per half game.
2. The year and a half off buys him eight-ten starts with me, in order to get the command back.
3. Actually in his glory days, I thought he spotted that FB pretty surgically against that hook.
...........
That said, he used to be real aggressive with the high hard one up in the zone and we haven't seen much of that. He'd get four inches of the plate rather than four inches off it. "Trusting his stuff" may be the issue exactly.
Not sure it isn't anything that a recovered feel on the ball, and a coupla called strike threes, won't fix. We'll see.
.

Lots of good stuff there

100 plus pitches thrown, 6 K's, 2:1 K/W ratio. Yeah, I'm still bullish. The Francour shot was scary. Might be a little command rustiness there, but this chart is revealing in that regard. Nice, very nice, #3 guy. Chone came *this* close to winning it for us. I guess the one guy rifling the ball was the one who should have been selective. Smoak - I wanted him to take a couple hacks there in the 9th. Olivo - another story.